In the summer time, my family would spend a few weeks at my grand-mother’s cottage. It’s north of Montreal in the Laurentian hills where a series of small towns scatter away from the main autoroute. The horizon line of the mountains was the same but every year the billboards changed. Most often it was always a summer play. Théatre d’été is the common expression meaning summer theater. But what it really means is a light hearted scenario filled with funny coincidences. Each city had their own play in residency and people would go from one village to the next to see it.A night at the Théatre d’été was a sure fire way to go out for a laugh. My grand-mother would invite a few friends to get tickets, she’d circle that night in her calendar by the fridge. Then started the countdown. I was always excited for her. I wouldn’t get to see the play, but I did get all the energy of anticipation. She would read the critics in the local paper. She would read up on the origins of the play. She would bring it up when talking on the phone with friends. Sometimes she even replayed the good jokes of last year’s play.
Then came the actual night of the play. My grand-mother would make sure to take her afternoon nap she called a “saucette” which was an expression used to take a dip in the water. It took me years to figure out that one. Back to the big night. She would get up, dress up, make up and finally pick up her friends along the way.
The next day she told me and my mom the story and some of the best punchlines. She would cry laughing about the way a male character had emerged from hiding in the closet dressed in his mistress’s clothes, acting as a friend passing by, to evade the suspicions of the husband.
All in all, the joy of a night out for laughs isn’t just during the outing. It’s before in anticipation and after in appreciation.